I honestly never thought that a community supposedly dedicated to culture jamming would so consistently let me down. It has nothing to do with culture jamming to circle jerk about the evils of the media or how bad corporations or the government are. It's accepted as fact. We know already, dammit, that's why we're here. Don't preach at the choir, especially if you aren't bringing anything fresh. Corporations are bad, getting worse, and are taking over our culture? Holy shit Mojo circa 1987, Where ya been, buddy?!

Now, I realize LJ Is just a bad source for that kind of thing. Most of the LJ kids are 14 - 20 and are interested becuase it might piss off mom and dad, it might get them laid, or because hey, if you're going to manufacture an identity, it might as well be a fairly inexpensive one.

I guess if you actually want something *real* it's Cacophony or ®™ark But then that's always sort of been the case, huh?

I'm cranky about this this morning becuase someone last strawed it by taking a photo from miss_mcdonald's journal and posted it with the phrase "In your house!!!". Now, I find the idea that someone could just loooove McDonalds that much strnage. But I also actually took the time to read her journal and see that she isn't a corporate freak and that she isn't pushing McDonalds and that she doesn't just sit around like this all the time, and well... to know what the fuck that was all about. In fact, her pictures just make me smile. I have her on my friends list after Karl found her journal. I guess I always took it as more of an art project than anything else, but then, I don't freak the fuck out about corporate culture in quite the same ways I did when I was say... 17.

It's just an example of the sort of things being pulled up as "meaningful" in adbusters and adbusting. Clips of commercials to be outraged over (three year old commercials never meant to be shown in this country for products not generally sold in this country and for a cultural climate that doesn't care as much about the odd tit shot). Ads taken completely out of context, misunderstood by the very upset poster and then argued about for a week, cutesy "what if!" projects that do a lot of flash animating but don't actually push BACK against anything. It's like a lot of protest communities. It's all bullshit and bluster. Which is fine, but I'd rather not sit in a community with other people and talk about how I'm not going to do anything. I can do that just fine from here.

Comments

It's frustration, I think. I mean, once you've come up with the 'hey, corporations really are evil!' idea in your head, it's so damned obvious that you try to tell all your friends... and they all give you The Dead Cow Look. You know, with the tongue hanging out and the eyes and the so... fucking... STUPID, all in the slack of the jaw and the shape of the upper lip.</p>

After a few months of Cow, you start looking for other people who get it, and it's kind of relieving, kind of, I don't know, affirming or some such, to hear them say, 'Yeah, corporations really are evil!' It's like finding another Northwest Synod Reformed Methodist in a sea of Lutherans.

It's not their fault that you're a Left-Handed Zen Northwest Synod Reformed Methodist.

Or something.

Y'know, one of these years, I'd really like to get to talk to you in person. Bandwidth/feedback kind of issues in text, y'know?

I think it's that they're just more than happy to sit around and agree with each other without really stopping to *think* about what it is they're agreeing to. I think they're another breed of Cow.

Yeah, that would be cool. I'm not sure when I'll next be in Washington since there really isn't a lot pulling me there and Karl's at work budget for travel (since there are some conferences in Seattle we could conceivably go to) has been sort of slashed (my boss lady has extended an offer to cover airfare/hotel for me to go to conferences as well).

Anyway (pre coffee babble) ... if you're ever around the middle of *this* coast for any reason you are more than welcome. We'll have to do a big G-f round up and get all the psychos in one room.